________ ________ ________
2017-09-01 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
As part of my employer's commitment to / _/ / /
the community we're asked to spend at least \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
two days a year doing volunteer work. It's a / \/ \/ / \
good initiative but as someone who's / _/ /_ _/
strongest weapon against depression and /- / _/ /
anxiety is routine I find it quite difficult \________/\________/\___/____/
to do. Essentially a double-whammy of
placing me in a stressful situation and removing the tool I use to cope with
said stress.
That said though, I do my best because it's good work and I WANT to
participate.
This past Monday was our second one for this year I think, although maybe
the last one was late last year, I forget but it doesn't matter; for the job
we were helping out at a dining hall for people in need. They serve free
breakfast and dinner for anyone, 365 days a year. I was dreading it most of
the weekend because of the aforementioned anxiety and when I rolled up I got a
bit lost on the grounds and that definitely didn't help, but my coworkers
arrived before me so when I finally found where I needed to be there were at
least some familiar faces. The hall is in a nice space, an old church annex I
guess, divided down the middle by a cafeteria style serving station with the
kitchen on one side and the dining hall proper on the other.
To start with they gave us a quick orientation session because we hadn't
been there before, outlining that the two "shifts" to each volunteer day, a
prep shift and a service/clean up shift, and giving us some guidelines and
warnings on how to deal with the clients or any situations that might arise
then they set us to work in the kitchen for the prep shift.
It was more or less what I expected for the kitchen work: cut this up, cut
that up, peel this, put all that in the fridge, etc. Towards the end of the
prep shift our volunteer manager started outlining who'd be doing what for the
service shift and that's the part I was really dreading, I don't do well face-
to-face at the best of times and I was already way out of my mental comfort
zone, thankfully our volunteer manager was really good about it. She was
almost relieved that she had someone so eager to volunteer for dishes duty
haha. One thing that I always forget about volunteering vs. my regular job is
that they're genuinely thankful for any help they can get and a little hurdle
like "please find me something to do out the back" isn't going to phase them.
Between the two shifts they fed the volunteer team, the same menu they'd
prepared for the clients, but I didn't eat because I don't really like to when
I'm with unfamiliar (or work-familiar) people and my stomach was still kinda
sour from the anxiety in the morning.
After the volunteers ate and cleaned up they set up for the service/clean
up shift and opened the doors to serve lunch for the clients.
The shift was savage. Dishes kept coming faster than I could get them
through and I wasn't even cleaning them, just rinsing them or removing any
stuck-on stuff so they could go through the industrial dishwasher. On top of
that it was only cutlery and cups/glasses, someone else was handling the
plates and bowls, so it was only two thirds of what was being used. It was a
vastly different experience to my usual day-to-day of typing on a computer and
sitting through dry meetings!
Then, after the head volunteers had locked the doors and were satisfied
everything had been cleaned up we all went our separate ways. I found a tram
to take me home, cleaned myself up and collapsed into bed.
Overall it was an exhausting but really fulfilling experience. The last two
volunteer days I've done have been helping out in community farms which is
good, fun work but there's a disconnect between the work you're doing in the
farm and the benefit to the community. They can explain to you about how the
profits from the farm go to this charity or that charity but in the dining
hall the it was so immediate. Seeing the people in need coming in to have a
meal, the benefit to the community really felt tangible and that was so
rewarding.
A couple things stood out while I was working.
One of the tasks we had for the prep shift was dicing aubergine but they
had been banged around a bit so were bruised and a little icky in places.
While cutting one up, I came across a squishy bruised bit and cut it up
anyway, thinking "Well, they're homeless, they'll take whatever they can get."
I stopped myself there, angry at myself for thinking that way. There's no
good enough for me/good enough for them, if I wouldn't eat it what right do I
have to say someone else should? Because they're poor? Because they don't have
a job or don't have a home? That's a pretty horrible attitude.
It also really stood out how varied the people were, not just homeless but
people struggling or just needing a leg-up for today, it was interesting. The
dining hall was out in the suburbs a ways but we live downtown, deep in the
city, and the homeless here are very different. They're the in-your-face kind
of homeless, smoking meth on the sidewalk and abusing you if you don't throw
them some money so that's who I was expecting in the hall but, really they
were just regular everyday people from all kinds of circumstances. It made me
really check my world view and gave me some new perspective. I admit I have
sometimes been vocally anti-homeless because my experience with them has been
entirely those "downtown" homeless mentioned above but I really need to be
more mindful that not everything is that black and white.
